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Toughness Limit: A Useful Index Property for Prediction of Compaction Parameters of Fine Grained Soils at Any Rational Compactive Effort

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Abstract

For establishing quick, practical and reliable criteria for effective control of field compaction, prediction of compaction parameters on the basis of laboratory tests—which are simple and less time consuming—are desirable. Through a review and analysis of reported literature on compaction characteristics of fine grained soils, it is shown that toughness limit-the water content at which soil state changes from a virtually non workable adhesive-plastic region to a workable tough-plastic region-bears a good correlation with optimum moisture content. The accuracy of optimum moisture content prediction is seen to improve when different correlation equations are used for low-to-medium plastic and highly plastic soils. At all energy levels studied, maximum dry unit weight is found to bear a good correlation with the dry unit weight at toughness limit water content. The range of workable or tough-plastic region has been identified as nearly 0.42 times the conventional plastic region as proposed by Atterberg. Thus the study also emphasises the combined influence of liquid limit and plastic limit on compaction parameters of fine grained soils at any rational compactive effort.

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Abbreviations

w L :

Liquid limit

w P :

Plastic limit

w T :

Toughness limit

γ d-max :

Maximum dry unit weight

γ d-Wt :

Maximum dry unit weight at toughness limit

OMC :

Optimum moisture content

k 1 :

Coefficient of toughness limit in the empirical equation for optimum moisture content

k 2 :

Coefficient of toughness limit in the empirical equation for maximum dry unit weight

RD :

Ranking distance

RI :

Ranking index

E :

Compaction energy

G :

Specific gravity of soil solids

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, 695016, India

    P. Vinod

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, N.S.S College of Engineering, Palakkad, 678008, India

    G. Sreelekshmy Pillai

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  1. P. Vinod
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  2. G. Sreelekshmy Pillai
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Correspondence to P. Vinod.

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Vinod, P., Sreelekshmy Pillai, G. Toughness Limit: A Useful Index Property for Prediction of Compaction Parameters of Fine Grained Soils at Any Rational Compactive Effort. Indian Geotech J 47, 107–114 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40098-016-0194-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40098-016-0194-6

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